Study finds men are more narcissistic

Prepare to be the more gloating sex, ladies: A "meta-analytic review" of 31 years of research has led University at Buffalo researchers to the conclusion that men are more narcissistic than women.

The researchers pored over 355 papers that encompassed findings on 475,000 subjects and found their conclusion held regardless of age or generation. The researchers broke narcissism into three buckets, examining entitlement, leadership/authority, and grandiose/exhibitionism.

Men most greatly outpaced women when it came to entitlement, suggesting, per a press release, that "men are more likely to exploit others and feel entitled to certain privileges." They also "exhibit more assertiveness and desire for power," lead author Emily Grijalva explains, and were more likely to agree with statements like, "I insist upon getting the respect that is due to me," the Washington Post reports.

But there was one facet of narcissism in which the sexes are equally matched: exhibitionism. Per Grijalva, "both genders are equally likely to display vanity or self-absorption." The researchers acknowledge it was already a "widely held belief" that men are more narcissistic, but they're resolute in their findings.

They write in Psychological Bulletin, "Results revealed that observed gender differences were not explained by measurement bias and thus can be interpreted as true sex differences." As for why that belief has persisted, Grijalva observes that "women often receive harsh criticism for being aggressive or authoritative, which creates pressure for women to suppress displays of narcissistic behavior." One somewhat comforting finding: After reviewing data on college students between 1990 and 2013, they found there's no indication that we're getting more narcissistic.